As the campus eagerly waits for kickoff between the UH Cougars and the University of Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, The Cougar dives into its archives for other instances where the two teams faced off.
We found two occasions. Neither time did the Cougars come out victorious.
The first meeting was in the 1981 Sun Bowl, after the Cougars won seven games and finished third in the conference under iconic head coach Bill Yeoman. The game was only 10-7 in the Sooners’ favor at the end of the third quarter.
The Sooners then broke through the inconsistent Houston defense and rattled off 30 points in the final quarter, to give them a 40-14 win.
Both teams squared off again in 2004, when the Sooners were the second ranked team in the nation. Coming off a Heisman win and a spot in the last year’s national championship game, Sooners supporters packed their stadium in Norman, Oklahoma for a game that had “blowout” written all over it.
Coaches Bob Stoops and Kevin Sumlin, tight end coordinator for OU and future Cougars head coach, faced off against Cougars and then-head coach Art Briles.
The matchup was broadcast on TBS, which no longer covers football, and featured sideline reporter Craig Sager. Cougars quarterback Kevin Kolb was thrown around by the Sooners’ defense and suffered a 63-13 defeat.
While putting up 13 points against an all-time great college football team might have had its redeeming qualities, Briles disagreed.
“I ain’t real excited about doing this,” Briles said, regarding to the loss to a top school. “We’re trying to establish a football program. When you’re trying to establish a football program, you don’t need to spend all your time working on morale and confidence. You need to have opportunities to do it on the field and not have to do it in practice.”
The Cougars will look to beat the Sooners for the first time in Houston this Saturday at NRG Stadium.
